What's your neighborhood's story? Every neighborhood has stories. Secrets. Things you have to live there to know. →[More:]Some of mine:

1. There is a small table in the corner of my laundry room that serves as a sort of dumping/ground thrift store. Whenever a resident has something they'd like to get rid of it goes on to the table and it's first come, first served. Usually it's junk like the cord from an electric blanket that couldn't have been manufactured any later than 1972 or a stained crocheted ladies' bonnet, but occasionally there is some good stuff to be found. I once got my hands on a big collection of old cookbooks and just today I found a big plastic bag filled with colored glass pebbles. (I like stones and pebbles and rocks of all sorts.)

In return I have donated the 1984 World book Encyclopedia (both volumes), one old but well-seasoned softball mitt and a shoebox of old CDs.

2. There is a small footpath on the farside of the apartment building that leads through the woods to the next neighborhood over. Halfway down the path just off the side is a HUGE flat tree stump that makes a perfect reading spot when the weather is nice.

3. There is a big swath of wildflowers growing along one side of the back fence. Very few people know about it because you have to take a path behind the dumpsters to get there. But it's a great spot to pick wildflowers for decorating.

4. There is a grocery store that sells lotto next to my complex. People buy scratch-offs and discard them along the sidewalk that runs between the two buildings. I walk my dog there and always check the discarded scratch-offs because people are impatient and occasionally fail to scratch off every spot. I've won a fair amount of pocket change on those things.

What are some of yours? (I apologize if this is too much of a GYOBF sort of post but I needed a distraction and the pebble find in the basement got me thinking about neighborhoods and the little secrets they hold.)